Midwife

 

Midwife, Decision Portrait Series. Stitched words: Delivering Babies at home....including mine. Xylene photo transfer on tea-stained muslin. Hand beaded and stitched.  Click on image to enlarge.

Peggy Vincent is an amazing woman whose story unfolds over the pages of her memoir, Baby Catcher, Chronicles of a Modern Midwife. I was introduced to her over the Internet by Dawn Goldsmith who writes a blog called "Subversive Stitchers".  Dawn has also interviewed Peggy. 

For twelve years after graduating from Duke with a degree in nursing, Peggy worked in more traditional labor and delivering rooms. Around 1976, the "alternative birth phenomena" gained wider acceptance and Peggy became the first director of the Alternative Birth Center in the East Bay area around San Francisco. She said, "Quickly I came to realize that I needed to become a midwife in order to be true to my determination to protect women from the relentless use of obstetrical technology that was undermining their confidence in themselves." Since then, she's delivered more than 2500 babies....a had a child at home herself! Peggy has since retired but her writing and influence are still going strong through those she inspired. To visit the Baby Catcher website, go to http://www.babycatcher.net.